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In 2014 as a whole, European venture-backed companies attracted €7.9bn ($8.9bn) across 1460 deals, a fall of 11% in deals completed from 2013 but an improvement of 25% in euros invested. It was the biggest amount invested since 2001 when companies raised €10.6bn, according to data provider Dow Jones VentureSource.

California's Santa Clara and San Mateo counties were called 'Silicon Valley' by Don C Hoefler, a journalist, in a series of articles in 1971. He had begun his career in electronics journalism as a publicist for Fairchild Semiconductor, which had pioneered the development of the silicon microchip. The tag 'Silicon' has become popular across the world - e.g. Silicon Glen and Silicon Fen in the UK - and in recent times, the area of the south inner city Dublin around the Grand Canal Dock - near the confluence of the Grand Canal, and the rivers, Liffey and Dodder - has been developed and several American companies, led by Google on Barrow Street and Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Dropbox, venture capital companies and others, have established operations in the area, which has been dubbed Silicon Docks by tech or policy folk.

A newly released report from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) finds that companies are investing more in fostering innovation, but are nonetheless missing key elements of an effective strategy to promote innovation. Over the last three years, 71% of the 350 companies surveyed increased investment in innovation, and 76% plan to do so over the next three years.

Ireland: The Department of Finance will publish a consultation document Wednesday on the proposed 'knowledge box' patent tax regime that will be enacted in replacement of the Double Dutch tax avoidance scheme. Late last year Department officials hinted that a 5% rate was under discussion to match the Dutch rate.

In 2014, 40 global startups were given valuations of $1bn or more, through fund raising in the year doubling the number of such companies there were at the start of the year, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. The Wall Street Journal reports that Xiaomi (little rice in Mandarin) Corp., the Chinese smartphone maker, is the most valuable, at $46bn after a recent private round.

Web & News: The Financial Times is the world's digital trailblazer among significant old world newspapers and the defeatism of the free model is giving way to a sustainable one for some. However, continued disruption is inevitable for many others.

2014 is expected to be confirmed as the hottest year in Europe in 500 years and three independent climate science teams from the UK, the Netherlands, and Australia say that global warming significantly contributed to this year's high temperatures.

One end of the world is melting; the other is sinking. And the more the ice melts in Greenland, the deeper the water gets around the islands of the South Pacific. A Swiss film director goes to extremes to show victims of global warming.

Investment in research and development by companies based in the EU grew by 2.6% in 2013, despite the unfavourable economic environment. However, this growth has slowed in comparison to the previous year's 6.8%. It is also below the 2013 world average (4.9%), and lags behind companies based in the US (5%) and Japan (5.5%). The data show that Irish-based companies increased spending by 13.6% in 2013 - however most of the spending was done by US companies that are tax-inversions, which have moved their headquarters to Ireland for tax purposes.

Global Entrepreneurship 2015: Ireland has got a 12th rank in Europe and 17th place in the in world for business startups according to a report and global index, which was published this week. Meanwhile the UK has been ranked as the best location of 22 countries in Europe for starting a business and 4th in the world among 130 countries with the US, Canada and Australia in the lead.

Research on about 3,000 tech (software + online) global startups in 1980-2012 shows that companies either grow fast or die slow. Only 3% of companies achieved revenues of $1bn or more and about 85% of the fastest growers were unable to maintain the pace.

Innovation: Tight R&D budgets in the EU, Japan and US are reducing the weight of advanced economies in science and technology research, patent applications and scientific publications and leaving China on track to be the world’s top R&D spender by around 2019, according to a new OECD report published Wednesday.

Kuala Lumpur: Continuing our review of the tech startup scene in Asia, we note that the Atomico tracker of software companies founded in the past decade (since 2003) and which have reached billion dollar valuations, has increased by one to 138 in the past week.

Despite a demand for innovative products, emerging markets like India are not prepared to pay a premium for Swiss quality. This presents a challenge for Swiss enterprises who want to stay competitive but without risking their hard-earned reputation for perfectionism.

Web Summit 2014: Given the chance to give up work to robots, nine out of 10 people “wouldn’t want to be doing what they’re doing today,” Larry Page, the 41-year old co-founder of Google said in an interview with The Financial Times, that was published last weekend. Apart from the remarkable reversal in modern times of an enduring pattern through the ages that the poor had little leisure time compared with the rich, technology is fallible and while Michael Dell saw the arrival of the Internet as a great opportunity to replace the traditional 'brick and mortar' retail model, Steve Jobs opened the first Apple store in 2001 and Apple now has about 425 outlets in 13 countries.

Web Summit 2014: With the summit opening in Dublin this morning, we have data on VC (venture capital) funding of mainly tech companies in business and financial services, healthcare, consumer services and IT, for the first nine months of this year with the US in the lead, followed by China, Europe and Israel.

The 3-day 2014 Web Summit is set to open on Tuesday (Nov 4-6) and the organisers of the immensely successful annual event expect record crowds that has prompted some hoteliers to raise Dublin prices 600% according to a media report. A 1000+ journalists are expected to be at Dublin's Royal Dublin Society (RDS) conference centre and as usual with high tech, for those who haven't a vested interest, the challenge is to separate the hype and reality.

Apple Inc. reported in a regulatory filing on Thursday that it may have to pay Ireland back tax in respect of the European Commission's ongoing investigation of state aid via a special tax arrangement made between the US electronics giant and the Irish authorities. The filing also disclosed that Apple had a foreign corporate tax rate in the fiscal year ending September 27, 2014.

Germany has again criticised schemes that apply a low corporate tax rate to profits from intellectual property (IP) that may not be developed in a country - the scheme is commonly known as a 'patent box.' Meanwhile in Berlin Wednesday, finance ministers from about 30 countries from 50 represented, will sign a deal that will strike a significant blow against banking secrecy, and tax fraud/ evasion.

While more than half of Irish CIOs (57%) consider innovation an important priority, they receive little or no funding for this within their IT function. 43% of Irish respondents to the annual Deloitte CIO (chief information officer) survey indicated that less than 1% of IT budgets were ring-fenced for innovation. This compares to their global peers where 19% of all respondents to the survey indicated that less than 1% of their budgets aligned to innovation-related activities. Similarly, while 30% of CIOs internationally consider IT innovation very important to the IT function, only 19% of Irish CIOs feel the same.

Apple on Monday reported that its new bigger-screen iPhones have been a big hit since they were launched last month and while its fiscal fourth quarterly profit rose 13%, it forecasts record holiday sales in the current quarter.

Google's third-quarter earnings fell as the search engine giant had a drop in paid clicks. It also added almost 3,000 more employees while raising spending on innovation and data centers. In addition Google's tax bill rose 40% to $859m related to Motorola patents.

The plan for Ireland to replace the Double Irish tax scheme with new intellectual property (IP) incentives named by Michael Noonan, finance minister, as a Knowledge Development Box, or more commonly termed a Patent Box in other European countries, is a good idea. However, despite the sudden conversion of the defenders of conventional wisdom to talking-up the opportunities of attracting more FDI (foreign direct investment) exporting companies of substance, we will not be on a pitch with an open goal.

Imagine a world in which suave private bankers have been replaced by algorithms and mobile phone apps have toppled centuries-old banks. Both finance technology start-ups (fintech) and digital-savvy investors threaten to disrupt the world of private banking.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Sweden announced today the award of The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2014 to Jean Tirole of Toulouse 1 Capitole University, France "for his analysis of market power and regulation."

Irish Universities: The fall in the rankings of Irish universities in world university rankings has inevitably resulted in calls for increased funding and while that is an issue which should be considered on its own merits, how realistic is it to expect funding to become world class universities?